Fuels for fast reactor mainly include two types: an oxide ceramic fuel and a metal fuel. A breeding ratio of the metal fuel used by fast reactor for the purpose of fuel breeding is over 20% higher than that of the oxide ceramic fuel, wherein a zirconium alloy fuel becomes a preferred alloy fuel type for fast reactor due to its excellent nuclear properties and physical properties.
Molten salt electrolysis is the most active spent fuel dry reprocessing technology for research. Spent fuel dry reprocessing adopts different molten salt electrolysis processes depending on whether the spent fuel is a metal oxide or a metal spent fuel. At present, the spent fuel dry reprocessing, internationally, mainly adopts a chloride molten salt electrolysis refining technology which is as follow: for the metal oxide spent fuel, metal oxide is first reduced to metal using metal lithium (or metal lithium is generated by electrolysis), and then the obtained metal, on a chloride molten salt, is subjected to controlled potential melting and controlled potential deposition, so as to respectively obtain uranium and uranium plutonium alloy fuel.
A patent reported a dry reprocessing molten salt system for preparing an aluminum alloy fuel. Aluminum alloy cannot completely meet the needs of the fast neutron reactor due to its low melting point. However, the zirconium alloy fuel has a high melting point, which is beneficial to the stable operation of the fast reactor. At present, the method for preparing the zirconium alloy fuel internationally comprises the steps of first obtaining uranium, plutonium and zirconium metals and then mixing the three metals in a ratio for melting. But, a process of preparing an alloy fuel by melting with pure metals is extremely high in cost, in which pure metal materials are first obtained through a metallurgical process and then the pure metals in a ratio are mixed for melting, and thus, the process is complicated, waste is high, energy consumption is high and cost is large.